Contributor page: Nathan K. – ntk743

Hello, my name is Nathan K. (that’s not my full name, of course). I’m also known as ntk743. I have been a LEGO fan since 2009, so you can say that I’m a fairly new to LEGO! 🙂

I’m a TFOL (Teen-Fan-of-LEGO) and I got into the hobby by getting a LEGO Club Magazine subscription from a friend. I liked LEGO City at first, then LEGO Star Wars and now LEGO Ninjago! (Even though I still like all of them!) I know a lot of my posts here aren’t about Ninjago, but that’s because Geneva – gid617 does a good job covering everything related to Ninjago, so it’s hard to find news that she hasn’t posted already! 😀

Here are some fun facts about me:

I got my first LEGO Club Magazine in February of 2010.

I have approximately 110 LEGO minifigures!

I enjoy building with my bulk LEGO, but keep all my sets together!

My favorite ninja from Ninjago is Kai (if not counting Lloyd).

My favorite villains from Ninjago are Lord Garmadon (with four arms) and Samukai (I have both of them).

I have 3 four-armed minifigures; General Grevious, Lord Garmadon, and Samukai!

If you add up all my LEGO their worth comes to about $600!

My LEGO ID is: ntk743 so invite me as your friend! 😛

I enjoy video-games, especially LEGO video-games!

I love playing Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja!

Usually I enter every contest in the LEGO Club Magazine, except if I’m too late or real busy with something else.

I enjoy reading comics, but I hate reading books! 😐

I’ve been to several different countries including Turkey, Mexico, Cyprus, and Germany (but just to the airport).

My family and I visited or drove through at least 23 states, maybe more!

I’m slowly working on learning Spanish – it’s difficult to learn a new language!

I’ve been to Hershey Park and I want to go to LEGOLAND California!

I visited the Grand Canyon National Park and a few other National Parks.

My favorite sports are football and basketball! I like to stay active and play outside.

I like the Pittsburgh Steelers, Miami Heat, and the New York Yankees! (A lot of people say I’m a front-runner.)

I love having Nerf Gun battles with my friends! 🙄

Usually I go to the beach in New Jersey for vacation! (I love the beach! Except for the sand…)

I’ve have started contributing at theBrickBlogger when I was just a KFOL (Kid-Fan-of-LEGO).

Nathan, I did the coding for the sidebars myself. You are using the free version of WordPress, so it is going to be different for you, as the free version works differently and you can’t do your own coding. I think the look of your website is nice, so just work with what WordPress gives you. There should be some way to categorize your posts into groups. Right now it seems you are only using pages and you don’t have any categories set up. I would recommend to organize your posts under categories. 😉

Well, you choose the theme you are using right now, so you should be able to change it the same way. 😉
But I don’t think you need to do that at all. Your current theme is awesome. All you need to do is to put your articles under categories and not pages. Pages are usually used for the top navigation bar, whereas categories are usually used on the side. When you write a post just create a category for it. Right now all your posts are under the category “Uncategorized”. You just need to change that and that’s all. 😀

So sorry for the trouble! Hang in there, we are almost done, I think! 🙄
TBB is being transfered over to a new server today. This takes about 24 hours. It is likely that some of the earlier comments were still going to the old server, and now you are seeing the new server, therefore the comments are missing. The good news is that if you don’t see comments that were posted earlier today, it means that you are now connected to the new server and there should be no more issues. Our new server is called PANTHER. I think that’s a good name. 😉

Hey admin
You know how you post the Ninjago episodes? Well, is it legal? Can I post them too? I though if you film them and post on youtube is kind of stealing because the the people who watch them don’t have to get cable to see Ninjago then Comcast and the other companies will loose money! Is that right? ❓

Yes, there is some truth to that. Please note however that the videos we are using here are not ours. As long as YouTube is okay with them, we can use them as well. Also, a lot of places don’t have cable. So for some people this is the only way they can watch the episodes until the DVD comes out. Also, the videos are posted after they come out on cable, so it is no loss for the cable company. 🙂

Yes, if someone has cable and has access to cable they will have no problem watching, and would have no reason to watch the episodes online. However as I have mentioned, cable is not available everywhere. The DVD should be available at some point, but in the meantime most Ninjago fans the only way to watch the episodes is YouTube. I’m not a lawyer, but as far as I know as long as YouTube and LEGO are okay with the videos there is nothing to worry about. 🙂

So sorry for not responding earlier; I have been out of town. As far as the popularity if the site, wirting regularly and paying attention of what readers would like to know about is they key in my experience. No I didn’t pay or bribe anyone to read TBB. As far as ads, yes, they pay a small commission. Usually 3% is the standard. Hope that helps. 😉

Thanks! Is there any way for me to get paid o my blog? Do I first have to have a domain name? If I set up a domain name can people still find my site if they put in the old address? That’s what is holding me back! Would people still find my site with the old address? I hope you can answer my question! 😉 Thanks

As far as I know you cannot have ads on the free version of WordPress. That is why I don’t use it. 😉

If you would start a self-hosted Wordpress site, you would need to choose a new name. Make sure Ninjago or LEGO is NOT in the name, as LEGO will have you shut it down. 🙁

You can direct your visitors from the old site to the new one. Just write a note somewhere on your front page for people to visit your new site. If you are serious about building a website I would suggest to do this sooner then later – although there is nothing wrong with having two websites. 😉

Please note that to have any kind of affiliation with advertisers you would need to be at least 18 years old. You would also need to build up certain amount of traffic and reputation for advertisers to approve you. What most people will do is to run their websites ad-free for about 6 months and focus only on making the website nice and building traffic. Once you have at least a few hundred visits a day, you can start talking with advertisers. But again; you have to be at least 18.

Running a full-on, self-hosted website is a lot of work; you need to do your own programming and work on getting traffic. It also costs money every month for hosting (about $10 a month for a cheap one), and also for your domain name ($10-$15 per year).

I have affiliation with both LEGO and eBay. As I have mentioned in my previous response; you have to have your own website, build up certain amount of fraffic, and apply for becoming an affiliate. You have to be at least 18 years old to do so.

I use Thesis. It is one of the most advanced themes available with built in SEO features and a streamlined platform that doesn’t bog down your server, or require you to edit core WP code. It is not a free theme though. If I remember correctly it was like $100 a couple of years ago when I bought it. I use the original version, not the recently released 2.0 that is available now. That one is way too hard to use for beginners and require quite a bit of coding knowledge. Skins will be added later to 2.0, so it may be worth to wait until they get added.

I just know pretty basic stuff to keep thsi website going. But I wouldn’t be comfortable developing my own theme or something like that. However I like Thesis because it has pretty much infinite options without messing with the core WP code.

The image boxes I made myself using pictures I found on LEGO’s website. Upload them, then just add a link leading to the appropriate page on LEGO’s website. Different themes handle the sidebars differently, but you should be able to activate a widget or something on yours to do something similar.

Nice to meet you ntk743! I’m Meneldur from the realm of Andoras, a made-up land I created. My real name is Jon and I’m a fan of Lego and have been since I was five (I’m now fourteen). Since you love Lego video games, have you played the Lord of the Rings one? Did you hear about the Lego Marvel Heroes video game coming out?